A MATTER OF IDENTITY

      After Jesus called his first disciples, he began to make a name for himself. It started in the synagogue at Capernaum, where the people were amazed because he taught with "authority." While he was in the synagogue Jesus drove a demon out of the man, and according to Mark. “Right away the news about him spread (throughout Galilee)." Jesus moved on from there, but he soon returned to Capernaum and began teaching to a crowd who had congregated in a family home. This time his teaching was interrupted when four men tore the roof apart and lowered their friend down to the floor. Well, Jesus not only healed the man who was paralyzed, he also forgave his sins… and according to Mark, the people were amazed as they exclaimed, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:12) 
     Jesus was making a name for himself and people were beginning to follow him. Then the day came for Jesus of Nazareth to return to Nazareth, where he had grown up with his brothers and sisters. It was in Nazareth where he had played in the streets with his friends. It was in Nazareth where he had reached the age of Bar Mitzvah and it was in Nazareth where he became a man and according to Mark, a carpenter. It was a Sabbath day, and as he had done in Capernaum, Jesus entered the synagogue, opened the scroll and began to teach. Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus taught that day, but Luke does. According to Luke, Jesus read from Isaiah: “the Spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind (and) to set the oppressed free.” “Today,” he added, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  
      It was a powerful message and a challenging claim about himself. It's impossible to know what reaction Jesus expected, but the record shows that they rose up in anger and began to ask right out loud, "Who does this man think he is?" They were outraged that a kid who used to run on their streets had the audacity to claim such things! They began to ask, Isn’t he the carpenter? Isn’t this the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon... and aren’t his sisters sitting here in the synagogue with us? Then things got out of hand and the hometown crowd drove Jesus to the edge of town so that they could push him off the edge of a cliff. Mark doesn’t tell us some of the details that Luke and Matthew recount, but he presents a very human Jesus by noting that, “He was unable to do any miracles there, except that he placed his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” Well, what does this poignant and personal story have to say to us today? I hope that it both nourishes and challenges you in many ways, but I will offer three of the thoughts that I have- one of them is a statement, one a question, and one of them is a call to reflection:

1.   It is hard to be a prophet at home! My mother called me “Kenny” to her dying day, even though I told her that she ought to call me "pastor Kenny" in church... and if she had an audience, she would retell the same old stories that she had told a thousand times before. Kenny, do you remember the time when a rooster chased you around the barn outside of Belle Plaine, or the time when you got lost walking home from grade school in Des Moines? I was never pastor to mom, nor to my brothers or to my childhood friends, and I never could have been;

2.   The real question that the people of Nazareth struggled with involved Jesus' identity. They were right to ask, "who does he think he is?" and that reminds me of the question that Jesus asked his followers at Caesarea Philippi- "who do people say that I am." He asks us today as well- who do people say that I am- and we might respond, people say a lot of things. Some say that you are a good teacher, some say that you're a wise philosopher, some say that you're a radical prophet, some say that you are disillusioned, some say that you're a good Jew, with a sharp mind and a big heart, some say that you're a great physician. People say a lot of things. But then Jesus asked his followers the question he asks us today: Who do you say that I AM? Who do YOU say that I am? It's the question of a lifetime because no one is going to carry a cross for a carpenter or some kid who used to hang around our house! If Jesus is only a poet or a simple man with great ideas, then we're all lost. As Paul suggested, if Jesus is not crucified and risen, then we might as well call it a day and go golfing. Who do you say I am? C.S. Lewis said that we can only say that Jesus was the Son of God… or a delusional fool… but what do you say? Consider it carefully because your answer may save your soul;

3.   How tame is our Christ? How big is our God? Do we follow Jesus because he’s ushering in an entirely new age of justice and peace, or do we follow him because he comforts us in this age? Was Jesus teaching us to turn the other cheek... or to free people from the demons that imprison them? Did he come to tweak a social order that affirmed the powerful and dismissed the weak… or did he come to tear all of that down and usher in a new world order? If Jesus is just another spoke on a philosophical wheel, then it doesn’t matter whether we follow him, someone else, or no one at all. If Jesus isn't God's Messiah, it would be ridiculous to carry a cross for him. But if Jesus is the Son of God.... who is calling us to proclaim good news to the poor (in all the ways that we are poor); to proclaim freedom to those who are imprisoned (in all the ways that we get chained); and to free the oppressed, which may mean that we will need to stand up and shout truth to power…then we have work to do! If Jesus is the Son of God and if he is calling us to do such things, we need to take an inventory of where we stand… and make it our business to see Christ in, and be Christ to, every person whom we encounter! Amen.